Opinion

Even though the recession isn’t exactly getting worse, the job market for college graduates isn’t getting much better. Competition is as high as it’s been in a long time, seeing as those who got laid off during the recession are looking for the same jobs that recent college graduates are. The jobs us soon-to-be college graduates were promised before we entered college are no longer there, and the expectations from hiring managers are less obtainable.

Take me, for example. I have been looking for a job for a few weeks now. I’ll be graduating next month and would like a job related to my major in some way. I am a communications major with an interest and experience in sports.

That experience, seeing as I haven’t graduated yet, is at the college level, obviously. But, from what I’ve seen, companies looking for employees like myself require much more than college-level experience for college graduates.

Many of the jobs I’ve been looking to get are entry-level positions. I’m not going to fool myself into thinking I will get something more lucrative than that. But I might have to lower my standards even further than I imagined.

I’ve applied for about 10 jobs in the recent weeks, but have looked at hundreds. I would have applied for many more than that while I’ve been searching, but the “minimum requirements” are out of my reach. I’ve seen many minimum requirements be something along the lines of “two to three years experience necessary.” For an entry-level position, that’s ridiculous!

That turns me, and probably many others in my situation, away from even applying for jobs that we have all the other minimum requirements in. Requirements like that only open the doors for those people, who I mentioned earlier, who were laid off during the recession and have a couple years of work experience.

I’m not saying that recession-laid-off people deserve jobs any more or less than people like myself do, but with such ludicrous requirements they become the heavy favorite.

This all seems like a venting session, but trust me, it’s not. In a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, they found that 44 percent of recent college graduates are underemployed.

By recent college graduates they mean folks ages 22 to 27 with a bachelor’s degree or higher. By underemployed they mean those recent graduates are in jobs that do not require their degree. Nine percent of those recent college graduates have jobs that pay $25,000 a year or less.

If the jobs us college graduates are seeking didn’t have such unattainable expectations, we wouldn’t have to settle for low-wage jobs.

We put in the hard work in school and need the reward that is supposed to come after. Some of us have run up debt of more than $50,000 and would like to be able to pay it back and start a family before we’re dead.

Moving back in with our parents doesn’t sound like the most self-sufficient idea, but instead of becoming homeless that might be the only option. Minimum requirements need to be exactly that: minimum requirements.